454 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



because many of the trains make this station their ter- 

 minus. It would be difficult to estimate the effect upon this 

 community of this line of steam transportation to Boston. 

 Besides the fifty or more families of railroad employees, 

 there are more than a hundred families which gain their 

 living in our neighboring metropolis by means of this rail 

 connection. Moreover, during the summer months hun- 

 dreds of visitors to our picturesque seashore are enabled 

 to make a suburb of this'town and thus deeply to change 

 the character of the place. From the sheep raising and 

 agriculture and fishing with their allied industries this 

 community has gradually turned away ; we have become 

 about half suburban, and the factor which has brought 

 about this change more than any other cause is the South 

 Shore Railroad. 



The transformation is being still more rapidly carried 

 on while the pen is writing these words, for the new 

 factor of electricity has been introduced. The third rail 

 has already been laid a part of the way between here and 

 Boston for the electric current, which will sweep along the 

 passenger cars with still greater comfort and frequency. 



It was only a few years ago that some conservative 

 people deprecated putting on six trains a day, because 

 they thought such rapid changing of the engines and 

 trains at our station would breed accidents. Now (sum- 

 mer, 1898) we have seventeen trains, with the expectation 

 of still more as soon as the line of electrics is inaugurated. 



When to these improvements we add the commodious 

 Union Station now being raised in Boston, the facilities for 

 transportation must impress any observer with the pro- 

 found change in the life of our community; and it must 

 be apparent that the occupations and habits and even the 

 character of our citizens have been deeply involved in 

 the evolution of our " Stagecoach, Packet, and Railway." 



